The Green Sheet Online Edition

February 28, 2011 • Issue 11:02:02

New Products

Upward mobility, no strings attached

Product: Pay AnywhereCompany: North American Bancard

With the Pay Anywhere mobile payment solution from North American Bancard, cost is never an issue, according to NAB. That's because anyone who signs up for this new program will receive a feature-packed mobile software application, card reader accessory, access to a secure merchant portal and customer support - all free of charge. The only fees attached to this service are a flat transaction fee and set percentages for swiped and keyed entries, the company stated.

"We are allowing our independent sales force of agents and ISOs the ability to offer a device, a card reader on smart phones, that has no fees when you don't use it," said Marc Gardner, NAB founder and President. "So, if you're only attending that book fair once a year, there are no fees when you're not using it."

According to Gardner, Pay Anywhere acceptance among smaller merchants during the pilot test was especially strong, because the free offer eliminated barriers to entry, and many said they preferred to process transactions at the point of decision. "We actually had a stay-at-home mom in New York City with a jewelry line she had created" participate in the pilot program, he said. "One of the first things she said to us was, 'The check's no longer in the mail.'"

Enterprise features for any size merchant

In terms of the company's evolution, Gardner said, "We looked at business logic software that was available to enterprise-level businesses and midsize-level businesses. It was really outstanding, but not available in your typical countertop POS terminal and only available in a really robust retail POS solution. We said, 'How can we make that available to a small user?' And we built those features into our app."

The application's real-time reporting functions can trigger automatic email sales activity alerts and track best-selling items at multiple locations. For example, Gardner noted, a limousine service operating 20 sedans in Chicago could determine where to position its vehicles on a Saturday night by selecting a date range of prior Saturdays. The software would then generate a report with a Google map pinpointing locations where the highest levels of sales activity had occurred.

Pay Anywhere automatically calculates local, municipal and state taxes. "We did the geo-positioning location on the device to look up the local tax," Gardner said. "If you're doing an art fair in New York City, your tax is going to be different than one in Madison, Wisconsin. Most small art dealers would not know the local tax, and it calculates that for them."

The application also produces data-rich receipts, which can be emailed to customers. The receipts contain details about items purchased, product images, a blue dart with the GPS location of the transaction's origination and the cardholder's signature, which Pay Anywhere captures.

Experience matters

Gardner believes NAB's nearly two decades of experience in payment processing supports its expansion into the mobile frontier. "We put a high level of importance on customer care and tech support, and where we provide a point of differentiation on that customer care experience is the fact that we have over 400 people here supporting these accounts," he said.

Gardner said that to expedite account signup, "We have a unique user interface for enrollment. This is just a different payment device. We market the ability to enroll and get a merchant active and on the network in under five minutes."